


Back This Way Again

by anr



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-20
Updated: 2009-04-20
Packaged: 2017-11-05 15:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's changed, she knows this much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back This Way Again

**Author's Note:**

> _1961_ (3x23), future spec (no spoilers)
> 
> "Crying" (Roy Orbison), "I Will Be" (Avril Lavigne)

_i know i let you down but it's not like that now_

  


* * *

  


On the east coast, they change the world. Twice.

"Terrorists," Peter says afterwards, his tone hard, furious, lightning on his fingertips, "always do."

Angela pours a drink. "A small price to pay."

Her fathers are off to one side, studiously ignoring them. She stands against the wall and watches, watches Peter leave, watches no one try to stop him, herself included.

She's changed, she knows this much.

Shaking herself, she runs after him, stopping him at the door with her hand on his sleeve. "Peter --"

He looks at her hand, looks at her face, looks at her hand. "Why are you here?"

She swallows. "The same reason as you."

He closes his eyes, sagging slightly, leaning into her touch. "I don't know what I want anymore." He shakes his head, pulls himself up, stepping outside of her reach and across the threshold. "Everything I touch turns to shit when I do."

She watches him leave again.

  


* * *

  


Back west, in her old room, she picks up a pair of scissors.

"Where are you going?" It's her mom who poses the question as she leaves the house, her fathers gone again, reshaping their brave new world.

She shrugs, smiles, flips her hair over her shoulder like she's meant to. "Running."

  


* * *

  


She enrols at Brown instead.

(She learnt how to lie from her fathers.)

  


* * *

  


She watches patterns develop, merge, change, push and pull dynamics like the rocking of a boat. The company stays gone, family in its place. She finds her sea legs flying first class between New York and California and back again. _The family business_ , Claire tells a girl from her socio-economics lecture, _is complicated_.

She remembers _Coyote Sands_ sometimes, storm clouds on the horizon and Roy Orbison on the radio, _you held my hand so tight_ , a brief pause in the diner parking lot, Peter's fingers clenched around hers, his mouth too close to hers, her name between them, _Claire_.

Complicated may have been an understatement.

  


* * *

  


She has a fake ID, _Mary Jones, twenty-two_ , procured or created (she never bothered to ask) by Zach when she was still popular and selfish and trying to buy bubblegum schnapps with Jackie on a dare.

"Where'd you get this?"

They're in the manor, alone for once, Angela at a benefit. She can't remember the last time she held his undivided attention and is greedy for it now, deliberately pushing for a reaction, showing him her latest rebellion.

"Vermont," she says, watching Peter turn the gun over, his fingers spread evenly across the barrel, "day trip."

He hands it back to her, an expression flickering across his features that she can't quite make out. "I gave you a gun once."

She nods slowly, caught by the way his fingers are lingering against hers, the gun between their palms. "I remember." She waits for him to ask her _why_ and plans her response, _just in case_.

He takes a step back, running his hand through his hair, looking away. "I saw the future once too." He looks back. "You killed me."

A chill runs down her spine. "We --" She shakes her head. "We changed that."

His smile is lopsided. "Did we?"

  


* * *

  


He stays for dinner, the two of them sitting side by side in the kitchen, eating sandwiches and drinking cola, the gun between them on the bench, a sharp reminder of what won't be.

She's not naive, not blind; she can see the parallels. When he leaves, she gives him the gun.

  


* * *

  


She knows he dislikes what they're doing -- _still_ doing -- to stay unnoticed, distrusts their motives, his own included. He believed in the beginning, she remembers sometimes, and wonders if he might still have if it weren't for the methods they ended up choosing.

"The road to hell," he says to Nathan one day, when he doesn't know she's there, standing on the landing at the top of the stairs.

Nathan's expression is grim, maybe sympathetic. "It's a round trip, Pete."

"Then maybe we should have stayed there."

Nathan walks away without responding, disappearing into the study, and she watches Peter turn and head towards the front door, pausing on the threshold to look back, look up, meeting her eyes and staring.

The moment stretches, time thinning. She takes a step down.

He's gone before she can reach the ground.

  


* * *

  


She learns Jujutsu until she dislocates her shoulder, learns Karate until she breaks her arm, learns kick-boxing and tells her teacher she has a really, really good supply of foundation to cover the bruises.

Peter lets her practice on him, her power flowing through his bones, lets her break his neck twice before she realises what he's letting her do.

"Fuck you," she hisses, watching him heal, vertebrae snapping back into place. "I won't be the cause of your death."

"Claire --"

"No." She shakes her head as he gets up, stands up, too close. "We changed it, Peter. We made it better."

"With guns and martial arts? How do you know that's not how it started? What you're doing --"

She slaps him. "What _you're_ doing is a pathetic attempt at showing me what's _never going to happen_." She sucks in a breath, her chest suddenly too tight, lungs aching. "Stop punishing me for the one thing I have _never_ wanted."

  


* * *

  


She doesn't see him for a month and dyes her hair Petrelli-brown, another rebellion, double-taking every time she passes a mirror, remembering his fingers on her cheek, shifting strands of hair away from her eyes, dust and sand on the wind and Roy Orbison singing, _from this moment on i'll be_.

She wonders if she hasn't gotten their roles reversed, if maybe _she's_ not the one being punished.

  


* * *

  


He comes to her during a weekend home, on a beach in Costa Verde, the smell of sea salt heavy in the air.

"I'm sorry," he says, staring at the horizon. "You're right," he says, staring at the waves. "I know," he says, staring straight into the sun.

He pushes an image into her mind, a snapshot of the two of them holding hands, watching a building burn. Her bangs have grown out, the colour once again blonde, her hair the only gauge she has for a timeline.

"I'm transferring to UCLA," she admits. "I miss cheerleading." She pauses, frowns. "And bubblegum schnapps."

He laughs.

  


* * *

  


She kisses him the day she moves back home, her hair still smelling of peroxide and her mumbled preface of, "I know I shouldn't but --" fading as his fingers tighten around hers. He lets it last longer than she expected him to before stepping away.

"Claire," he starts.

She cuts him off. "You're the one thing I _do_ want." His eyes close. "And I can change," she promises. "I can _not_ change." She steps closer, removing the distance between them, her body brushing his. "I can."

"No." His eyes open as he leans down, mouth skimming hers. "We can."

  


* * *

  


They change their world again. He stays. 

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/343198.html>


End file.
